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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2023-01-11-LHRC-min TOWN OF LEXINGTON HUMAN RIGHTS COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES Wednesday, Jan 11, 2023 Conducted by Remote Participation LHRC MEMBERS PRESENT Tanya Gisolfi, Chairperson (TG), Mona Roy (MR) Christina Lin, Clerk (CL), Stephanie Hsu (SH), Amber Iqbal (AI), Salvador Jaramillo (SJ), Lexington Public School District - Larry Freeman (LF), Town of Lexington, Police - Lieutenant Collen Dunbar (CD), Town of Lexington, Melissa Interess (MI), Town of Lexington, Liaison Town of Lexington, Selectboard - Mark Sandeen (MS) Guest - Shaun Grady, Town of Lexington, Human Services (Youth and Family Services) The minutes were taken by Christina Lin, LHRC Clerk 1. Meeting Called to order at., Quorum was present at 9:15am. TG encouraged everyone to encourage promoting the LHRC Community Conversation on Race and the MLK Day of Service. 2. Meeting Minutes - No minutes 3. Continuing conversation on areas of focus for the LHRC: What should the LHRC be doing for the community and town at a high level. Update was shared that LICA donated a little over $700 to the LHRC as TG spoke at their 2022 Thanksgiving service and LICA generously donated the collection to the LHRC . Much appreciation for the donation was expressed. Committee members shared their ideas for new and existing pursuits, evaluated their ideas on the purpose of the LHRC and the organization of the committee. The pairings set at the last meeting each shared a number of ideas, and it became clear that there was significant overlap and alignment in visions across the pairings. For clarity and brevity, the ideas in common are listed below followed by a more detailed summary that each pair shared. Key ideas shared by all groups pertain to: (1) the desire to reexamine incident reporting and sharing of the incidents in a manner informative to the LHRC as well as the broader community; (2) marketing of the LHRC, the purpose and role of the LHRC in the community should be better advertised to better educate Lexington; (3) continue utilization of the committee to play a central role in elevating all voices in the community on issues around human rights and identity. Formulate a strategic plan for ensuring traditionally marginalized voices are heard, as they can be easily silenced by the “majority”, which shifts depending on the topic ; (4) the role of the LHRC as a community builder was expressed by multiple pairs. MLK Day was called out as a positive in this regard. Ideas shared that did not overlap, strengthening institutional partnership, advising the Select Board on town legislation relevant to human rights and intentionally foster DEI fluency among Town Meeting and committee members. o LF & MR shared a desire for more awareness and publicity of the goals and mission of the LHRC, so the community knows how best to engage with the committee. Also, regarding incident reporting, a lack of public feedback/reporting on submitted incidents makes it hard for the committee and public to understand the purpose of incident reporting as well as the trends of issues being reported in Town and possible recommended steps to mitigate them. Also, an emphasis on outreach to cultural groups in town with intentional effort to establish and/or reaffirm the LHRC support of cultural groups. A member shared that attempts to establish formalized relationships with cultural groups through mutual attendance of meetings failed in the past and recommended developing alternative approaches for build ing the relationship. Additionally, they shared a continued interest in building stronger connections and lines of communication to support incident reporting from all institutions in town as well as enhancement of working collaboratively across town organizations and entities. Also, they expressed concerns about not hearing any reporting about one of the most vulnerable groups in town which is the special education community even though stories are often heard from external conversations. Would like the committee to work more intentionally in building the relationship with the special education community. o SH & AI expressed a desire to provide youth leadership opportunity and possibly consideration of a peer reporting system. The LHRC have explored the possibility of including HS students in the past, but the timing of the meeting makes that impossible or very difficult. Echoed interest in building relationship with cultural groups and possibly utilize the Chief Equity Officer to support the connection. Expressed concern on the bandwidth of the committee. A key role of supporting and showing concern for the human and civil rights of all citizens. Supports continued work in educating the community and figure out what educational pieces should be addressed. Support continued examination of incident reporting. o CL & SJ pointed out a lot of overlap in ideas and encouraged the use of paired discussions to facilitate developing, processing, and progressing ideas. Added a point on defining an appropriate expectation of the committee for receiving, investigating, and reporting of incidents given the nature of the volunteer committee that does not necessarily have adequate training or experience in handling sensitive matters. That said, the LHRC can provide an important avenue for the community to document incidents. Also discussed uplifting marginalized voices through the lens supporting human connections. Also added the lack of education to the public around what the LHRC does and clarity around the how this differs from the work of the Chief Equity Officer. Also, SJ added interest for the LHRC to consider providing feedback on key pieces of legislation under consideration by Town Meeting and possibly take a role in supporting DEI education for Town Meeting Members as well as community members. Could the LHRC help lead or hos t a discussion about the goals of the town. o CD & TG, tried to figure out how the LHRC reports incidents back to the committee, community and/or other relevant town entities (i.e., Police, Chief Equity Officer), discussed updating the form and possibly renaming. Discussed including youth from LHS or middle school. Also talked about elevating visibility in the town. One possible approach is for the LHRC to take ownership of a centralized town wide event calendar that serves all the community and community organizations. There was support of increased public reporting of incidents once identifying information have been scrubbed clean. Supporting the LHRC in providing a more timely and complete reflection of incidents could also help combat any tendency to den y such offenses would happen in Lexington. Once we can find a way to develop the process for incidents, training on investigating and tracking the incidents, this can also help provide more direction on the education that LHRC might want to focus on. On boarding for new members and continuing to build relationships with the broader community and town staff. CD mentioned a larger committee would help and is researching funding and structure of neighboring committees and commissions. o MI shared an idea originally presented with Human Services which is to pull together community stakeholder groups who have a vested interest in human rights or human services type issues through the nature of the work the organization does. This could be meeting that meets 2-4 times a year. This allows the various groups to come together and share what they see or hear in the community. • As a group the committee considered A member asked if there was a report of trends of reported incidents and possibly raise awareness of th e ability to report incidents through local papers like Lexington Times. Another member cautioned that the number of incidents reported can be low and can lead to the perception that these incidents are rare. TG stated they will not run for Chair a third year and her term as a LHRC member will also be expiring. MR expressed her gratitude to TG for stepping up in numerous leadership roles on the committee for all six years of her participating and for her key role in the strategic growth of the committee. Creating an LHRC logo was brought up again as a way to increase visibility. SH said she would attempt to create a logo; her daughter might have ideas and she would look into options. MR would like SJ to put his ideas on paper. 4. Race Amity - SH and AI have begun planning and are working on outreach to create a working group as a first step. They are excited about using art as a platform for delivering the message of Race Amity and elevating youth voices. They already reached out to LexPride to partner. 5. MLK Day Community Conversation on Race - The event will take place on Monday at Grace Chapel. CL & TG wanted to spotlight Joyce Swagerty and Mia Roberts for developing the 2023 program that will be an interactive learning experience for deep personal reflection and expressed gratitude for the opportunity to be on the planning team. 7. Public Comments - • Shaun Grady- "Consider Human Rights Committee changed to Human Advocacy Committee". "Frame the changing leadership idea to predetermined rotation of leadership, leadership model with more concrete parsing of roles and spread the work. Also, a member advocated to switch to the co -chair model and pointed to other Town Committe es that utilize it. Their reasoning was that the role of the Chair requires a high level of emotional labor which would be better supported in the co-chair model where the burden can be better shared. 8. Meeting adjourned ~10:30AM Next Meeting is Wednesday, February 8, 2023, at 8:45AM - 10:15AM 1625 MASSACHUSETTS AVENUE • LEXINGTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02420